News
Newsletter December 2020
Highlights this month
- A wonderful opportunity to mentor N pastors and reach even more of the 9 least-reached people groups in N Mozambique as 14 pastors from 5 Provinces come to Bethel from December to March
- Grade 7 and 12 and university kids great results and back at school
- More than 30 churches in 10 provinces ran Orphan Sunday – and 145 churches in ten provinces re opened for small group worship and were trained and encouraged in 3 seminars in Xai Xai, Inhambane and Nampula!
Praise
- NAMPULA DISTRIBUTION AND TRAINING – Praises for God’s absolutely amazing coordination of donations, funds, timing and political circumstances, which enabled us to send the thermometers, the Bibles, and motorbikes to key pastors from the 140 recipient churches, from all ten provinces, some of them in some of the least reached areas of N Mozambique, as well as enabling pastors from Cabo Delgado to come and joint pastors from other areas for encouraging, support and training, after which they could go back with resources to share and the funds for the refugee feeding. Praise God the food distribution to the 41 refugee families, as well as a group of 18 widows and orphans, went without a hitch, falling between attacks by the insurgents. Praise God for protecting this much needed program, and for having his hand on the courageous pastor who flawlessly and efficiently carried out each distribution with stax of video evidence to prove it. (Not shareable due to the sensitivity of this area).
- ORPHAN SUNDAY – Glory to God for a huge increase in churches from all ten provinces, who held Orphan Sunday programs on 8 November this year, as a great first step to sharing God’s Father heart with the orphan and abandoned child – praying for many more to open their hearts, homes and families to foster and adopt these precious kids! We are so touched by the contributions coming in from the poorest churches, to be shared with the Cabo Delgado orphans.
- VEHICLES – Praise God with us AGAIN AND AGAIN for the joy of being able to pass on vehicles and motorbikes to those in great need of such, and for His amazing provision of the beautiful, strong and hard-working 2016 Hilux x cab bakkie we now have. Praise God for the freedom of movement allowed here even in C19 restrictions, to be able to use it to deliver food parcels to grannies caring for Royal treasures without support in remote villages in our province.
- LAST BUT NOT LEAST : Praise God for a WONDERFUL NEW VISION for continuing the mentoring of the pastors and leaders from the 4 Northern provinces of Mozambique, through running a 3 month long MISSION SCHOOL using the BETHEL centre – which YFC has agreed to loan to us in part (they will still use it to run their camps etc) in exchange for us doing the maintenance and working out a solution for supply of water and electricity ! A challenge but NOT FOR GOD ! This is both exciting and scary as the plan is to use the following 3 month window from December to March, created by the schooling upheavals here, relating to C19 school closures earlier this year. IT LEAVES US VERY LITTLE TIME to raise a budget of nearly R65000 ! Praise God for the digital screen already purchased, the LIFESCHOOL equipment already in hand, 2 visionary Pro-Visao pastors from Xai Xai who are FULLY on board, and best of all, a NEW TEAM MEMBER in Xai Xai – Franco Coetzer, graduate of Liberty Christian University in USA, and an experienced missionary having worked under Help and Healing Africa supporting a rural hospital near Massinga in Inhambane province for some years, feels called to join Pro-Vision International Mozambique, serving under the leadership of the board of Pro-Visao Mocambique ! He and Claudia, who is a school teacher (pic below) plan to marry sometime next year ! We do thank God for this as our hands were feeling weak and tired and Franco has much passion for Evangelism and Discipleship and is also a really practical guy, who worked with Mark during the cyclone relief last year!
PRAY FOR THEM AS THEY NEED TO RAISE PERSONAL SUPPORT FOR THE FIRST TIME.
Prayer
MISSIONS SCHOOL BUDGET AND SUCCESS
Please intercede for us for strength, wisdom, funding (A mind-boggling budget of an extra $1000 at a time when many other expenses loom (Les’ residence papers are STILL NOT THROUGH after a wait of 3 months, and the old permit has now expired, creating a daily fine payable. God has it covered – no sense in fretting ! We need special prayer for a strong, and united spiritual team as we run this 126-session Portuguese language video missions course for the first time, with selected students from the Northern provinces and a few spaces for local students. Also pray for the Protection of the pastors traveling from very sensitive areas in the North (Cabo Delgado).
Water, water – Living and physical
Pray for the Holy Spirit’s filling and enabling of all who teach and are trained in the Missions School, and then go back to extremely tough areas. Pray that they would be blessed, refreshed and equipped. Pray for us, as we proceed to take our 3 weeks’ annual leave as planned, in the middle of the Missions school, because we too, need the Living water, or we will die, burn out and not be able to carry on, either as a couple or in Ministry, We really need prayer – we have had not had chance to work through burn-out issues created by the cyclone, since we went straight into the stresses created by homeschooling and caring for Royal Treasures during C19 lockdown, without the usual breaks in SA…. and over the recent months, coordinating and doing the training and distribution of digital thermometers and Bibles for churches post C19, and coordinating Orphan Sunday across 10 provinces. We have been too busy ! Looking forward to a REST IN JEFFREYS BAY and the chance to see our family !
REFUGEES AND TRAUMATISED ORPHANS
Please keep on praying. I have no words for the heaviness in my heart as I write about this. The attacks on the mostly Christian villages surrounding Mueda, where most of our help for refugees has been going, have continued every day for the past week. The pastor who ran the Orphan Sunday program for the children of the Mueda refugees, said that the very next day, orphans arrived who had watched their mothers being decapitated – a story was told of a pastor tortured and butchered alive, yet refusing to recant and say ‘There is no God but Allah … We pray for these for whom Christ died, but who have been blinded by Satan and are being manipulated by the Father of Lies who comes only to steal, kill and destroy – this is a SPIRITUAL BATTLE. Let us fight it as such ! We are so heartsore and have no words, yet know the Holy Spirit is the comforter – and this earthly life, however difficult, is but a fragment – the tiny red-stained end of an infinitely long rope (for those who know Frances Chan’s illustration). So we have hope. And what we do with our short red rope matters – even how we die matters. It all effects the rest of our rope – eternity. Praise God for faithful martyrs. Pray for the believers ! May we encourage these few who will be here with us for the next 3 months.
THANKS FOR PRAYING AND SUPPORTING PRO-VISAO MOZAMBIQUE
Friend
0